Generally speaking, many people desire to be kept abreast of current trends in society. For example, when watching the news, a person may like to be informed of current societal events and trends, popular products, and interesting programming of which they have access to consume. However, often such information is difficult to find or navigate through, thus motivating a person to seek out desired specific information. Further, once the information is retrieved, the information is often out of date, or less desirable than if it was obtained when it was created or when the event or programming had originally occurred. For example, when a television event occurs which attracts a very large number of viewers, such that it may top a most popular list, a person may want to become aware of the event before the event ends, enabling the person to view the event as it is occurring as opposed to hearing about the television event after the fact or viewing it at a later point in time.
Currently, some mediums permit a person to discover and select content that is the most popular for a particular information source. For example, many online newspapers now publish the “most emailed articles” in ascending order to permit readers to view articles that others are frequently reading. However, to obtain this information, a person must first seek out a website in order to view its most emailed articles list. Further, not all websites contain such information, resulting in wasted time and energy by a person searching for this information. Some services determine the audience size of a particular viewing event such as Nielsen Media Research of New York City, N.Y. However, this information is disadvantageous because it is not provided in a real-time environment and is often compiled into generic categories that do not appeal to the specific interests of individual people.
The description below addresses these and other shortcomings in the present art.